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Category: Excerpts

What They Don’t Tell You About Women in Mythology!

Posted on by prathod

Step into the captivating world of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain lore with Sati Savitri by Devdutt Pattanaik where women rewrite the rules and redefine their destinies beyond patriarchal norms. From ancient scriptures to modern-day interpretations, Pattanaik offers a fresh perspective on liberation, revealing how patriarchy and feminism have coexisted throughout history.​

 

Read this exclusive excerpt to dive into the feminist side of mythology like never before!

Sati Savitri
Sati Savitri || Devdutt Pattanaik

***

Images of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, are often placed in libraries, right next to the board that says, ‘silence please’. No one notices that the goddess always holds a musical instrument called veena (lute) in her hand. The irony is lost on many who look at sacred images without actually doing darshan.

 

Darshan is the act of seeing that generates insight and results in reflection. For example, the sight of the veena grants us some insight into the human ability to make music and musical instruments, and this makes us reflect on how music made by humans is different form the music made by birds. The music of birds is specific, to enable survival. It is designed to attract mates and draw attention of fellow birds to food or predators. Human music, on the other hand, is not necessary for survival. But it adds beauty to life and makes us wonder on the meaning of existence, by making us aware of various rhythms and emotions.

 

Unlike other goddesses, there are not many stories about Saraswati. She is more the embodiment of a concept.

 

Saraswati is draped in a white sari indicating she has distanced herself from the materialistic world, represented by colourful fabrics. While Lakshmi nourishes the body with food, Saraswati nourishes the mind with knowledge and the arts. Lakshmi’s wealth is contained in a pot; Saraswati’s knowledge is expressed through words, through songs, stories and music, dance and arts. In Jain art, the more austere Digambar monks compared Saraswati to a peacock while the white-clad Shwetambar monks compared her to a goose (hamsa). In Indian folklore, dancing peacocks attract rain clouds, while hamsas are able to separate milk from water, like fact from fiction.

 

▪️ The peacock links Saraswati to art, dance, music, theatre and entertainment.

 

▪️ The hamsa links Saraswati to ideas embodied within, and communicated through, sounds, songs, stories, songs, symbols and gestures: the knowledge of maths, science, literature and philosophy.

 

Saraswati is therefore linked to both, the peacock like courtesans as well as the swan-like philosophers. In modern society, the courtesan has been erased from history; her contributions to the world of art appropriated by men.

 

In popular Hindu mythology, Saraswati is called the wife of Brahma. But she is also called the daughter of Brahma. This can be confusing. The confusion comes from our failure to appreciate that mythology is metaphorical. Gods and goddesses are given supernatural forms so that we appreciate the idea, the symbol and do not take things literally. That Saraswati is shown with four hands, and Brahma with four heads, is the clue provided by the artist that these figures embody ideas, not entities.

 

Human ideas are complex. Words are often not enough to communicate an idea. We need grammar. We need sentences. We need punctuations. We shift from prose to poetry, we use music and melody, even gestures and symbols, to communicate subtle refined ideas. Language has metaphors where known words are used to explain and elaborate unknown ideas and inexpressible emotions. Still ideas resist transmission. What is conveyed by the source is not received by the destination.

 

To communicate Vedic ideas to people, the sages decided to compose stories. Ideas then become characters. The relationship between ideas is communicated through relationships among characters. Characters have gender, and so the relationship between ideas ends up being expressed in sexual terms. When the characters are gods, indicated by their supernatural form, they serve as metaphors. They are vehicles for ideas that resist simple communication.Veda, which means knowledge, pays a lot of attention to reality that is visible and reality that is not visible.

 

▪️ Food is a reality that is visible. It is visualized in female form as Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune. The name Lakshmi is derived from ‘laksha’ which means target.

 

▪️ Hunger is a reality that is invisible. It is visualized in male form as Indra, the master of paradise, where all fortune is cornered.

 

▪️ The name Indra is derived from ‘indriya’ which means sense.

 

▪️ Indra chasing Lakshmi is then a metaphor for hunger chasing food. Indra rides elephants. The aroused, excited, uncontrollable elephant in the state of masht is how the poets describe Madan, or Kama, the god of uncontrollable craving.

 

▪️ Shiva who burns Madan then embodies the mind who controls craving. Shiva also beheads Brahma’s fifth head that sprouts as he chases Saraswati. Here, Brahma views Saraswati as entertainment to be consumed, rather than knowledge that will help him evolve.

 

▪️ In wisdom, Brahma realises that the point of creation is to feed the other. Animals eat and are eaten, but humans need to feed and be fed. This applies to food, as well as power, as well as knowledge. Saraswati created must be given away. In the process we gain insight and reflection.

 

Male forms are consistently used to depict mental states:
1. Brahma for craving
2. Indra for insecurity
3. Vishnu for empathy
4.Shiva for indifference
5. Kartikeya for restraint
6. Ganesha for contentment

 

Female forms are consistently used to depict material states.
1. Kali for the wild
2. Gauri for the cultivated
3. Lakshmi for resources
4. Saraswati for communication
5. Durga for battle
6. Uma for household
7. Annapurna for kitchen
8. Chamundi for crematorium

 

Why are male forms used to depict the invisible reality of the mind and female forms for the visible reality of matter? The reason is relatively simple if one appreciates the male and female anatomy from the point of view of the artist and the storyteller, who carry the burden of communicating Vedic ideas.

 

***

Get your copy of Sati Savitri by Devdutt Pattanaik wherever books are sold.

Behind the Scenes of R. Ashwin’s Rise to Cricket Fame!

Posted on by prathod

R. Ashwin, one of India’s greatest cricketers, shares his incredible journey in I Have the Streets, co-written with Sidharth Monga. Ashwin not only talks about his amazing cricket achievements but also tells the story of his struggles with health as a child, the strong support from his family, and his love for cricket growing up in the streets of Madras.

 

Read this exclusive excerpt to get a glimpse of Ashwin’s early cricketing days full of hard work, family sacrifices, and his deep passion for the game.

 

I Have the Streets
I Have the Streets | R. Ashwin, Sidharth Monga

***

I am ten when Appa’s teammates at Egmore Excelsiors ask him to bring me around to play for them. I have been taking formal coaching, and my batting is coming along nicely. Appa fears I will get hit by the hard cricket ball, so he keeps resisting. I am not puny, but I don’t have the muscle mass to go with my height. With all my wheezing and vomiting bouts, I struggle to keep any food down. Two years later, he finally gives in.

 

At twelve, I make my Madras leagues debut for Egmore Excelsiors in the fifth division. My first kitbag is the same improvised pads-around-the-bat contraption. The bat is Appa’s Simon Tuskers, fully taped and gutted. In my second season, I have scored a century. My main utility, though, is to field at slip and short leg. I take a lot of catches. And blows, because fifth-division spinners are quite erratic with their discipline, thus endangering their short-leg fielders.

 

Now, instead of protecting me from the cricket ball, Appa is following the coaches’ advice that tennis-ball cricket will ruin my game. So, he tries to ration those matches for me. To help me rid myself of the fear, he installs a net in the house. The surface of the first one is quite rough, so he gets it redone to a smooth finish. During a family function at home, he asks the videographer to film me while batting. It comes back like a wedding film.

 

Appa throws balls at me from a close distance so that I don’t fear the thirty- to forty-year-old pros in the leagues, who can be a terror with the unpredictable bounce of the matting pitches we get in the fifth division.

 

Batting against them is not even the scariest part. It is the fear of letting your teammates down and getting admonished for it. The first season is really intimidating. I’m not sure know what they will say or where they will make me stand on the field. I keep fearing misfielding or dropping a catch. No matter how poorly the team has bowled, if a young kid makes a mistake on the field, that kid becomes the reason they lost. They make you run from deep midwicket to deep cover between balls. To score a hundred and compete against these men in just one year tells me I might have something in me as a cricketer.

 

Appa recognizes it and wants me to be tested against the best. He gets me enrolled in as many academies as he can. Some coaches he pays; others he takes favours from, using his connections. Former India wicketkeeper Bharath Reddy now handles operations at Chemplast. As the name suggests, it is a chemical company in Madras. The name doesn’t give away, though, that they field two strong teams in the higher divisions of the Madras leagues: Jolly Rovers and Alwarpet CC. He also runs his own academy, where I train.

 

By thirteen, I am a bit of a big dog at the Bharath Reddy Academy. Appa is tempted to get me to the seniors’ nets, among the Jolly Rovers probables, to test me. One of the quicks knocking at the Jolly Rovers door is L. Balaji, who is unplayable on matting pitches. He bowls rockets that don’t even come straight at you. His outswingers are hard to follow; his inswingers hit batters in the chest and not the pads.

 

The thing with Appa, though, is that he will never undermine a coach by making such a demand. A coach is almost like a senior police officer whose orders must be followed without question. The other thing about Appa is that he will not give up. When this inner conflict of his becomes apparent, Amma comes to the rescue by offering to make that call to Bharath Reddy. However, Bharath Reddy still ends up giving Appa a piece of his mind when he sees us. Facing Balaji at thirteen is a death wish, he says.

 

Appa is slightly bolder at the other academy, Sishya, run by P.K. Dharmalingam, who does cricket shows on TV. He is the man Kapil Dev credits with teaching him how to take catches running back and over his shoulder, the most famous one being that of Viv Richards in the 1983 World Cup final. After two months of persistence, Appa finally convinces Dharmalingam to let me bat against the senior quicks. There is no sight screen; we are on a matting surface with concrete underneath, and this big, fast bowler runs in. The first ball I face hits me in the chest, and I am down. I have to be carried out of the nets.

 

For a few days after the incident, I wake up in the middle of the night to see a hand near my nose and mouth. It’s Appa checking to see if I am still breathing. He feels guilty and is worried about pushing me too far. He scales it back a little but doesn’t give up on repetitions. Repetition to build muscle memory is a big thing with him. A day before I have a match, he sits on a sofa and keeps throwing balls at me. At least 200. ‘Bend that knee when you play the cover-drive.’ He has also tied a ball to a rope that hangs from the ceiling so that I can keep repeating my shots. This way, I don’t need a person to throw balls at me, nor do I need someone to run after the ball.

 

There is one problem, though: the ball keeps hitting the fridge before coming back to me. This fridge was gifted to Thatha by his father-in-law when it was rare for homes to have one. Thatha continues to treasure it. The fridge has become the trigger for the outpouring of all the tension between Thatha and Appa. Thatha doesn’t like Appa investing so much time, money and emotion in my cricket. Especially with my health problems.

 

On this one day, I am getting in a last-minute knock before a league game. As I keep hitting the fridge, tempers flare between Thatha and Appa, who cushions me from it. ‘You have no value for money. You don’t know how expensive this fridge is.’

 

In an attempt to shield the fridge, Appa tries to get in the way of a shot I play, but my bat swing ends at his forehead, splitting it open. Immediately, blood gushes out. The floor turns red. I freeze, drop the bat and stand there not knowing what to do.

***

Get your copy of I Have the Streets by R. Ashwin and Sidharth Monga on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Mrityunjay: Can Vivaan Unravel The Truth Behind His Grandfather’s Mysterious Death?

Posted on by prathod

The most awaited work of Tantric fiction of 2024 is here! A gripping blend of mythology, suspense, and ancient wisdom, Mrityunjay by Parakh Om Bhatt is about Vivaan’s quest to unravel his grandfather’s mysterious death, discovering a hidden world of tantric secrets and ancient prophecies. Could it be that the severed fifth head of Brahma held the deepest secrets of the Kaliyuga?​

Read this exclusive excerpt to know more.

Mrityunjay
Mrityunjay || Parakh Om Bhatt

***

‘Baba, what is death? Why did Mom and Dad have such a short life?’
Vivaan had asked his grandfather these questions numerous times to, only to get a more mysterious answer each time. Today too, he was thinking about death. His thoughts came to a sudden halt as the car stopped. He had arrived at ‘Vasant iwas. The beautiful childhood he spent with his grandfather, the old man’s moist eyes when Vivaan was leaving for London, the spark in his eyes when he returned with a journalism degree and the shock when he announced that he wanted to settle down in Mumbai— the memories were vivid and fresh in Vivaan’s mind. He stepped out of the car and stared at the house. He had never ever thought he would come to an empty home in Rajkot.

 

The vintage-style house was one of its kind in the city. Vivaan opened the huge front door and the light smell of sandalwood hit him immediately. He remembered his grandfather using sandalwood while performing his daily prayers. The scent of the sandalwood reflected Sudhir’s subtle presence. The living room had white marble flooring, antique furniture and glass showpieces. There was a huge, embellished living room, prayer room and kitchen on thefirst floor of the house. Every morning after finishing his daily routine, Sudhir would sit in the prayer room on his mat in a fixed place and was not to be disturbed for an hour–and–a –half. There was another room through the prayer room, the key to which only Sudhir had. Vivaan still did not know what was in that room. He was curious, but after an incident that had happened in his childhood, he had not probed further.

 

Vivaan was shaking as he entered the living room. It was only last night when Sudhir had taken his last breaths in this very room. Vivaan imagined his grandfather stepping out of the prayer room, giving him a warm smile and offering him some prasaad. Vivaan reckoned that he had lost the pillar of his life.

 

His entire existence had crumbled in the last twelve hours. Though he had put on a brave face all this while, he was broken from within. He did not know how he would go on with his life without any family. He forced his eyes shut and crumpled to the floor. Fifteen minutes passed in absolute numbness. The sudden and loud ringing of his phone forced him to open his eyes and come back to reality.

 

‘Hello . . .’ Vivaan’s voice was almost like a whisper.

‘Good evening, son. Have you reached home?’ Alok Chaudhary said, his tone firm but loving.

‘Yes, uncle . . .’

‘Freshen up and come to the morgue. I want to talk to you.’ There was an urgency in Alok’s tone.

 

Alok Chaudhary, commissioner of the Rajkot Police, was a close friend of Sudhir Arya’s. Though they were years apart, they got along well. At fifty-seven, Alok was a year away from retirement. He had achieved the position of commissioner after several years of hard work and was well respected by his department for his excellent observation skills. Many believed that Alok should be in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and use his reasoning and intellect for national security. But Alok had decided that after the wedding of his daughter, Riya, he wanted a peaceful life. He was no longer the same person he had been at the start of his professional journey, mainly due to the emotional turmoil he had gone through in his life. Alok had a profound reverence for Sudhir. Every evening after work, he would visit Vasant Niwas. He had a thirst to learn about history and mythology. And Sudhir Arya was a treasure trove of knowledge! Though he was
fifty-seven, Alok would listen prudently to everything Sudhir said. Their discussions would range from ancient history to the multinational companies that Vivaan ran. He had always addressed Sudhir as ‘Dada.’ When he heard the news of Dada’s death that morning, he could not believe it.

 

Alok had not been able to meet Dada for two days—he had been out in Gondal on business. After watching the news, he immediately asked his team to seal Vasant Niwas with strict orders that nothing was to be touched. Forensic experts were called in and even the tiniest things in the house were analysed. In the end, Sudhir Arya’s body was moved to the morgue. The death certificate was awaited. Alok had called Vivaan to take custody of the body and wrap up the formalities.

 

It was evening by the time Vivaan reached the morgue. Though the Diwali lights shone on Rajkot, Vivaan felt a void and darkness within him. The appearance of the morgue and the copper sign on the gate looked inauspicious. He forced himself to walk towards the room at the end of the lobby. Before entering it, he caught a glimpse of what was going on inside.

 

Alok seemed to be in an intense discussion with three constables and the doctor. They were all standing in a circle and vehemently arguing about something. However, Vivaan was not looking at them. His eyes were seeking his grandfather.

 

The stretcher lying in one corner of the room caught his eye. Unexpectedly, he sighed. He had to hold on to the handle of the door to prevent himself from falling. Hearing the low thud, everyone present in the room looked at the door.

 

‘Baba . . .’ Vivaan was on the verge of collapse as Alok ran towards him and caught him just in time. Vivaan’s eyes were still on the body of his grandfather, lying half-covered with the white sheet.

***

Get your copy of Mrityunjay by Parakh Om Bhatt wherever books are sold.

How Data Can Transform Your Business Overnight!

Posted on by prathod

Today’s data-driven world is changing in the blink of an eye. Boundaries blur, expectations evolve, and innovation knows no limits. In Mastering the Data Paradox by Nitin Seth, understand the convergence of data and AI, and explore how organizations leverage these forces to redefine industries and exceed customer expectations.

 

Mastering the Data Paradox
Mastering the Data Paradox || Nitin Seth

***

Blurring of boundaries and expectations. 

As a result of continuously evolving customer expectations as well as the business and competitor landscape, organizations are now becoming more fluid, and are moving towards becoming a one-stop solution to customer requirements. Using data and technologies, they can stretch beyond their own area of expertise to integrate multiple solutions under one hood. Today a mobile service provider is not just providing connectivity solutions, but are also providing payments, shopping, gaming, entertainment and many other solutions as well.

 

The Amazonification of services and Netflixization of experiences has not only affected their own respective industries but has transformed cross-industry expectations. Today, personalized experiences have gone beyond the purview of the retail industry. Equipped with access to data, B2B customers are also expecting a similar kind of personalization from chemical manufacturers. For example, the ‘Lab Assistant’ at BASF, is a web-based application that provides full access to data on complete product data and exclusive formulations that enable customers to find the right raw material and formulation ideas to create customized product formulations. Similarly, omnichannel experiences are not just expected from entertainment providers today but also from insurance providers. Now insurance is available to be bought online, over phone or in-store. Customers not only expect the convenience of buying online, but also similar levels of efficiency and convenience as top tier e-commerce sites. And since insurance purchases are highly personal and have many considerations, customers prefer multiple touchpoints before finalizing a purchase.

 

In addition to that, we have increasingly come to expect one-stop shop solutions stemming from Amazon-like business models that we have got used to. So, we expect even our financial services provider to provide us with an array of services under one roof. Today, in a world where customers have a wide range of options to choose from, they are ready to pay a premium for ease of use or access. They would prefer interacting with a single service provider who can cater to
different customer requirements, like savings, investment, insurance, bill payments, loans or even shopping, and deliver desired customer experience. We have come to expect our financial partner to provide connected seamless services across all these offerings, available at our disposal through a single app or website, accessible through least number of clicks, with minimal documentation and shortest lead time. Today, a car loan or a home loan, is available pre-approved by
your financial service provider, can be availed via the bank website or mobile app with just a few clicks and the money is transferred within a few hours or a day or two.

 

That is the amazing feat that data has enabled individuals and organizations to achieve. And like I said, this is just the beginning. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Can you imagine what we can accomplish if we are able to go deeper and unleash the full potential of data?

 

Key takeaways
• Data fuels digital technologies, enabling unprecedented applications. Digital technologies, in return, spawn more data, adding to the data explosion, further enabling widespread AI use. And AI is enhancing digital experiences and data itself. This recursive relation between digital, data and AI is one of the most powerful transformative forces in the world today.

 

• The omnipresence of data has catalysed a comprehensive transformation across every aspect of our life, so much so that we now find ourselves unable to envision life without digital technologies fuelled by data.

 

• The evolving lifestyles are opening massive opportunities for businesses across all industries. Abundance of customer data has enabled firms to deliver Amazon-like services and Netflix-like experiences. Organizations are now able to extract untapped value and innovate like never before.

 

• The interplay between individuals and industries is redefining industry landscapes, blurring industry boundaries and transforming cross-industry expectations.

 

***

Get your copy of Mastering the Data Paradox by Nitin Seth wherever books are sold

Here’s How Tweeting Right Can Make You a Marketing Legend

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Get ready to unearth the gold in your language arsenal with Mine Your Language by Abhishek Borah, where the power of words can make your brand go viral. This book uncovers how the words we choose can either make or break a company’s success. With insights into the marketing tactics, and social media strategies of top brands like Toyota and Tesla, as well as tips on understanding customer reviews, this book is your go-to guide for using language to connect with consumers and drive business growth.

Read this exciting story of how Oreo became an overnight Twitter sensation during the Super Bowl.

Mine Your Language
Mine Your Language || Abhishek Borah

***

For a while now, digital communications have emerged as one of the most important means for brands to engage with customers. Brands increasingly use social media marketing, brand communities and buzz agents to build brands. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that a growing number of consumers have become disenchanted and have grown suspicious—if not tired—of digital communications and online advertisements. Many firms utilize personal data collected from their online users to target and personalize ads. This has led many consumers to find such ads intrusive, annoying, creepy and tiresome.

 

To help overcome this consumer annoyance, fear and fatigue, I, along with a set of friends who are also my co-conspirators in several research papers, explored the potential of ‘improvised marketing interventions’ (IMI) on social media. By ‘IMI’, we meant an impromptu, humorous, timely and unanticipated social media message from a brand that capitalized on an external event not connected to it—such as the Luis Suárez incident. We examined thousands of messages on X to see if tweets with the characteristics of an IMI could excite audiences and generate virality for the brand. ‘Virality’ means the number of retweets or shares received by the IMI on X.

 

We focused on X as it allowed us to capture a rich dimension of virality via retweets. Retweeting in X is a social phenomenon where users take a message someone else has posted and rebroadcast the same message to their followers. Unlike Meta (or Facebook), X is a one-way directed social network. On X, a user A ‘following’ user B does not imply that B ‘follows’ A. This unidirectional network structure suggests that a retweet is more credible, diffuses beyond the original user’s network, and is probably read more than a typical tweet because it is pre-screened and shared by a user who is followed. Though there are other forms of engagement on social media, such as likes and comments, which proxy for various engagement measures, we focused on virality. Our main goal was to enable managers to improve the effectiveness of sharing a brand’s digital communication on social media.

 

One brand that took advantage of the Super Bowl blackout was Oreo. When the entire Mercedes-Benz Superdome lost power for over thirty minutes, American football fans across the US took to social media to pass the time. Unexpectedly, Oreo, a popular cookie brand, filled the void within moments of the power outage, Oreo tweeted, ‘Power out? No problem’, along with a starkly lit image of a solitary Oreo cookie. The caption read, ‘You can still dunk in the dark.’ This now-famous tweet received 15,000 retweets in the eight hours after they posted it, creating significant publicity for Oreo at minimal expense. By contrast, a Super Bowl ad slot costs an average of $4.5 million. And this is an average. There are ads that cost much more. Amazon’s ninety-second commercial, Before Alexa, aired during Super Bowl LIV, is the most expensive Super Bowl commercial, along with Google’s commercial Loretta, which aired during the same Super
Bowl. Both cost a whopping $16.8 million. Oreo’s tweet cost the company almost nothing compared to the two above.

 

So, how did Oreo win the Marketing Super Bowl? One important phenomenon that Oreo used to its advantage is the modern consumer’s propensity to use multiple devices, known as ‘multiplexing’. Sports fans now, often, use not only the TV but also their smartphones and tablets to keep abreast of what is happening. Gone are the days when the only source of entertainment was the television. Oreo’s fifteen-person social media team realized they could catch the attention of these multiplexing fans when the Blackout happened. Their social media team, consisting of copywriters, artists and a strategist, was ready to react online to whatever happened in the Super Bowl within ten minutes—whether it was an amazing touchdown or, in this case, the lights going out. The team reacted quickly, and boy, did it pay dividends!

 

‘The new world order of communications today incorporates the whole of the way people are interacting with brands right now,’ said Sarah Hofstetter, former CEO of digital marketing agency 360i, which handled game-day tweeting for Oreo, in an interview with Wired. ‘Once the blackout happened, no one  was distracted—there was nothing going on. The combination of speed and cultural relevance propelled it to the forefront.

 

Similarly, Snickers, the chocolate bar brand, used the Suárez ‘Bitegate’ incident to showcase its cheeky brand of humour. The Snickers social media team was one of the first to call Suárez out on X, posting an image of a half-eaten Snickers bar with the slogan: ‘More satisfying than Italian’. The post generated about 17,700 likes and 1500 comments. Snickers was rewarded with 43,000 retweets in the next twenty-four hours and 38.7 million earned media impressions in two days with no paid media behind it. Again, no high television advertising costs, just like the Oreo tweet.

 

***

Get your copy of Mine Your Language by Abhishek Borah wherever books are sold.

Amazon Vs Walmart: Who’s Winning the Battle for Your Buck?

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Curious about the evolving retail landscape and the roles played by industry giants like Amazon and Walmart? In Nirmalya Kumar‘s Clash, find out how these titans impact the lives of everyday consumers, giving a new meaning to digital convenience and challenging the traditional shopping experience. ​

Read this excerpt as the world’s two largest companies, redefine retail and business best practices, and fight the ultimate battle for your buck!

CLASH
CLASH: Amazon vs Walmart || Nirmalya Kumar

***

In the charming suburban town of Harmonyville lived a woman named Elimijn, a dedicated and caring housewife. Her days were filled with taking care of her family, managing the household and pursuing her creative hobbies. Two giants, Amazon and Walmart, played unexpected and integral roles in her life’s journey.

 

Elimijn was an avid reader and an aspiring artist. She loved exploring different genres of books and finding new sources of inspiration for her art. Amazon became her digital haven, offering an extensive collection of books, art supplies and crafting tools. With a few clicks, Elimijn could order the latest bestseller, a set of watercolour paints or even a specialized easel, all delivered right to her doorstep.

 

But Elimijn’s affection for retail didn’t end online. Walmart, with its sprawling store just a short drive away, provided a unique sensory experience. Elimijn enjoyed the tactile pleasure of wandering through its aisles, exploring a vast variety of products. She would often visit with a list in hand, making her way through the neatly organized shelves, hand-picking fresh groceries, household essentials and even some affordable fashion finds.

 

What set Amazon and Walmart apart in Elimijn’s heart was their balance in her life. Amazon’s convenience saved her time and effort, allowing her to spend more precious moments with her family and immerse herself in her hobbies. On the other hand, Walmart’s physical presence gave her a chance to step out, breathe in the air and indulge in a bit of old-fashioned retail therapy.

 

During holidays, Amazon’s quick shipping helped Elimijn avoid the holiday rush. She could order thoughtful gifts for her loved ones, wrapping them up with care and sharing the joy of giving. But the annual tradition of visiting Walmart to select the perfect Christmas tree with her family remained unchanged. The smell of pine needles, the twinkling lights and the festive atmosphere created cherished memories that couldn’t be replicated online.

 

Elimijn’s relationship with these retail giants wasn’t just about transactions. It was about the roles they played in her life’s narrative. Amazon’s efficiency became a trusted ally in her daily routine, while Walmart’s physical presence provided a sense of connection to her community. In a surprising twist, Elimijn’s creative endeavours gained recognition online. Her artwork found a following on social media, and soon enough, she was approached by both Amazon and Walmart to collaborate on exclusive lines of products. Amazon showcased her art supplies and books, while Walmart featured her artwork on select merchandise. Elimijn found herself at the crossroads of the very stores she had come to love. Her story was a reminder that these giants weren’t just about commerce—they were about opportunities, experiences and connections. Through Elimijn’s journey, Amazon and Walmart became not just retailers, but integral parts of her life, shaping her routines, her passions and even her dreams.

 

The battle between Amazon and Walmart, or more generally between online retail and physical stores, is often presented as a zero-sum game. It is believed that as online retailing becomes more popular, consumers will increasingly abandon brick-and mortar stores. Clearly, there is some evidence supporting  this as many traditional retail chains have gone bankrupt while online retailers like Amazon and Alibaba continue to deliver dramatic growth numbers. This difference in growth is also reflected, as noted earlier, in the hefty valuation that the markets place on disruptive e-commerce players relative to incumbent physical retailers.

 

In this chapter, we will build a more nuanced picture of this competition. Specifically, we will investigate if there are certain types of customers, particular buying situations and some product categories where the relative attractiveness of physical stores like Walmart is superior to online stores like Amazon  and vice versa. In exploring this, we will restrict our focus to the US, as it is the country where online retailing began and is most evolved, while also being the largest source of revenue for both Amazon and Walmart. Furthermore, we will use my Marketing as Strategy book’s 3Vs framework of valued customer (who to serve?), value proposition (what to offer?) and value network (how to deliver?) to investigate the differences between these two retail giants. The valued customer and value proposition aspects are discussed in this chapter, while the value network will be the focus of the next two chapters.

 

Who is the target segment for each retailer? Market segments, as we are taught, should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Therefore, instinctively, marketers seek to answer this question by demonstrating that the types of people, based on demographic variables such as age, sex, education, income and geographical location, who prefer Amazon are different from those who patronize Walmart for their shopping needs.

 

However, customers in the real world, as the data will show, do not fall neatly into well-defined boxes. When asked, people often respond that relative to Walmart, Amazon shoppers are younger, more urban and educated, with higher income levels. They also see Amazon shoppers as more technologically savvy, forgetting that ordering on the mobile phone app is not a novelty or challenging any more. While the data does feed this stereotype to some extent, the differences in these demographic variables between Amazon and Walmart shoppers are not that dramatic, and furthermore, are decreasing over time.

 

Research indicates that the average (mean level) income of Amazon shoppers at $84,449 is only 11 per cent higher than for those who shop at Walmart ($76,313).2 Digging deeper, the typical (modal level) Walmart shopper is a married white woman with an undergraduate degree, between fifty-five and sixty-four years old, living in the suburbs of south-eastern USA, earning about $80,000 annually.3 However, this segment also frequents Amazon because Amazon’s typical shopper is a college-educated married woman, living in the south-east, earning more than $80,000 a year, but split across two age brackets: thirty-five to forty-four and fifty-five to sixty-four. Thus, a segmentation based on demographic variables does not give an accurate picture, as consumers do not shop exclusively at either Amazon or Walmart, which I am sure also reflects the behaviour of any American reader of this book.

 

***

Get your copy of CLASH: Amazon vs Walmart by Nirmalya Kumar wherever books are sold.

How Dhoni’s Helicopter Shot Changed the Game of Sports Governance

Posted on by prathod

Sports governance (Yes, it’s a thing!) is just not a peripheral concern; it holds equal importance as the sport itself. In his latest book, Boundary Lab, author Nandan Kamath sheds light on the intricate subject. Kamath cracks open the world of sports as a testing ground for societal change.  Discover how rules, markets, and morals are experimented with and refined on the field, shaping our society.

Read this excerpt to know more.

 

 

Boundary Lab
Boundary Lab || Nandan Kamath

***

Imagine a world in which certain moves and techniques, once displayed or published, could be locked up and controlled for extended periods by individual athletes who were the first to think of or express them. What if Dhoni could decide whether, who and when another cricketer could play the helicopter shot?

Any use would require a licence from Dhoni. Besides being a logistical nightmare, it would alter the competitive balance of many sports by taking parts of the vocabulary out of use or raising their price. Participants may also end up handcuffed, unable to operate instinctively, driven by their muscle memory.

 

A batter who doesn’t have Dhoni’s permission to play the helicopter shot could play other shots to the same ball. However, the control of the owner over a unique move could be determinative in other sports that are premised on a single effort rather than extended and multiple segments of play. For instance, the high jump competition would be heavily skewed if Fosbury was the only one allowed to use his move for two decades. Competition results would be more predictable and, as a result, less engaging for participants and spectators.

 

Despite these complexities, some believe that it is appropriate and fitting to incentivize sports creators or inventors. They argue that there are remedies available to reward the athlete for their ingenuity while keeping the move in use by everyone. If Dhoni owned the helicopter shot, the BCCI could license the move from him in a deal that allowed anyone to use it in the IPL.

 

Of course, this would come with costs that the system must bear and will, eventually, pass on to its participants. There are also transaction costs involved, with licences to be negotiated. Battles in conference rooms will precede those on the playing field. Infringements would have to be policed across amateur and professional sport—hardly an attractive proposition for anyone other than player agents and lawyers!

 

If certain moves are taken out of play or made exclusive, learning is hampered. So is improvement and further innovation of such techniques and methods. Sport is learnt at every level of the talent pyramid through observation and emulation. School kids learn movement from physical education teachers. These teachers may have played sport at some level or might teach their wards using a vocabulary of movement passed on to them from a previous generation. Aspiring youngsters learn sports technique in camps from coaches who have often been athletes themselves. Elite athletes learn from certified coaches trained by the system, and from peers and competitors.

 

The Kenyan athlete Julius Yego was unable to find a coach who could teach him to throw the javelin, so instead, he learnt how to do this by watching YouTube videos. He went on to become African, Commonwealth and World Champion and won silver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Google him and you’ll find his nickname—Mr YouTube.

 

Creativity at any rung of the pyramid quickly reverberates through the system. It is learnt, aped, modified and improved upon.

 

In many ways, Dhoni’s helicopter shot has its origin in a long line of prior ways of doing so—Azharuddin and VVS Laxman’s on drives, Ravi Shastri’s chapati shot, Kapil Dev’s Natraj shot and Ranjitsinhji’s leg glance, each building on the prior art. The freedom to copy without concern or cost is at the heart of the pedagogy of sport. This is especially so in resourcelimited countries where coaching talent is limited and much of the learning is done by watching elite players on television and then attempting to emulate them. If certain moves were granted protection and locked away, young athletes on the learning path would first be exposed to the move but then told they may not use it. This is a type of ‘pre-alienation’ that puts options and ideas into the mind but takes them away even before they can be experimented with.

***

Get your copy of Boundary Lab by Nandan Kamath wherever books are sold.

Set Up Your Personal Finance Game Like a Pro with these ACTION-able Insights!

Posted on by prathod

Ready to level up your personal finance game? Discover how to become a financial pro with ACTION by Vivek Mashrani and Anand Venkitachalam! Dive into this exclusive excerpt for actionable tips on assessing your finances, setting smart goals, and crafting a budget like a boss. Get set to take control of your financial future today!

 

Action
Action || Vivek Mashrani, Anand Venkitachalam

***

Financial planning is a systematic approach to using money wisely so as to achieve your life goals. The process includes an in-depth examination of your current financial status, the setting and prioritization of goals, the formulation of an action plan to reach these objectives, regular review of your progress towards this plan on an ongoing basis and then updating your plan as necessary. Timelines play an integral part in financial planning, as they dictate what investment options are available, your risk tolerance levels and your overall strategic decisions. Understanding your financial situation At the foundation of financial planning lies your understanding of your current financial status—knowledge of your income, expenses, assets, liabilities, risk tolerance, etc., as described earlier. Now that you understand your financial status and have a clear picture of your life goal, aligning with your financial goals should become part of your daily routine. To create an efficient personal finance goal-setting process, follow these steps.

 

1. Evaluate your financial situation
Evaluate the details of your monthly income and expenses by factoring in all sources (salary, rental income, etc.) against all expenses such as rent, groceries and transportation. Additionally, consider your assets (real estate, stocks, mutual funds, etc.) against your liabilities (home loan, personal loan, credit card debt, etc.). You can calculate your net worth from this, as described earlier.

 

2. Establish your financial goals
Reflect upon what financial milestones you wish to reach—for example, purchase of a home, saving for college tuition expenses for your children, planning an efficient retirement portfolio or an overseas trip.

 

3. Establish SMART financial goals
Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound to help ensure they will actually happen. Rather than setting generic retirement savings goals, such as ‘I want to save for retirement,’ make your goals specific—for example, ‘I plan to save Rs 2 crore by age sixty.’

 

4. Categorize your goals based on your time horizon for them
Classify your goals based on their expected dates of achievement to more efficiently allocate and prioritize resources towards meeting all your financial objectives. This exercise helps set clearer priorities when prioritizing finances for long-term objectives.

 

5. Prioritize your goals
Ranking your goals from ‘P1’ to ‘Pn’ is the easiest and simplest way to identify which ones are of highest priority to you, P1 being given top billing and Pn receiving no consideration at all. Establishing your priorities allows you to direct your effort, time and financial resources towards those goals which align best with your values and aspirations. Making more informed decisions regarding where your income, savings and investments go can also ensure that progress is being made towards your more important financial objectives.

 

6. Estimate the savings needs for each goal
Estimating the total investments required on your part for each of your goals and breaking up those investments into manageable savings targets require the consideration of factors like the time horizons you have in mind, the inflation rates and any associated costs. Using those figures, you can then set realistic savings goals for the allocation of funds for each of your objectives.

 

7. Allocate savings and assets according to priority
This involves matching up financial resources with each goal’s importance and time horizon. Prioritized goals, such as emergency funds or near-term objectives, often necessitate more conservative savings instruments, like savings accounts or short-term deposits. Medium-term goals could benefit from an array of savings and moderate-risk investments; long-term ones may require higher-risk vehicles like stocks or mutual funds to drive potential growth. By pairing savings and investment instruments with each goal, you can optimize your financial resources while increasing the probability of their fulfilment. Furthermore, this exercise will also assist with identifying lowpriority goals which need to be abandoned or postponed.

 

8. Establish a budget
A budget involves making a careful inventory of both your income and expenditure in order to craft an account that aligns with your financial goals, tracks your spending habits and savings, where applicable, and also allocates your savings to investments related to those goals. A good budget enables you to prioritize your financial goals while controlling your spending habits so as to stay within your means. The purpose of the budget is to ensure financial stability and prosperity for years to come.

 

9. Monitor your progress
Regularly assess your financial health using online tools or apps which sync up with your bank accounts to get an accurate picture of where you stand.

 

10. Review and alter your goals
As life circumstances shift, so must your goals. Marriage, children, health issues, job changes or income adjustments all may necessitate modifications to your financial goals. Financial planning should not be seen as a one-time activity. It is an ongoing journey. Your plan must adapt to your life changes and the shifts in your financial situation. Seeking advice from financial advisers may also prove helpful.

***

Get your copy of ACTION by Vivek Mashrani and Anand Venkitachalam wherever books are sold.

Is Consumer India on the Brink of a Lifestyle Revolution?

Posted on by prathod

Discover the intricate world of consumer India in Lilliput Land by Rama Bijapurkar. Explore the aspirations and attitudes towards credit that shape consumer India’s behavior and learn through the many valuable insights for businesses navigating this dynamic market amidst India’s digital revolution.

Let the Mega Consumption story begin!

 

 

Lilliput Land
Lilliput Land || Rama Bijapurkar

***

A lot has been written about this in media stories and books, and ‘the changing Indian consumer’ is a favourite conference topic. However, given the structure story of the many Indias, all these anecdotes and observations of how different parts of the elephant behave need to be distilled into a holistic view of the nature of the beast. This chapter looks at key shapers of behaviour—aspiration, dignity, Indian identity, brand orientation, the phenomenon of monster consumers, how to understand and navigate heterogeneity of the market for strategy development, and how to read change in the confusing way in which Consumer India changes. Shapers of Consumer India’s Consumption Behaviour A macro-consumer view of the people of India Consumer India, as the previous chapter on structure has demonstrated, is a fragmented and complex hydra-headed monster, based on just its economy, demographics and living conditions. Add to that a layer of different social and cultural factors aff ecting diff erent parts of Consumer India (including community, region, politics and language), and diff erent levels of exposure to diff erent worlds outside, it gets even more complex. Requests asking me to speak on the topic of ‘Indian Consumer Behaviour’ or ‘Changing Consumer Behaviour in India’ terrify me. How does one capture the enormity of behaviour variations in Consumer India? No matter what one could say, the opposite would also be true in some audience members’ recent experience! Therefore, for reasons of both prudence and competence, this chapter will not attempt the near-impossible task of chronicling diff erent kinds of consumer behaviour and diff erent patterns of consumption.

 

The focus of this chapter will instead be on understanding the lives, mind spaces and attitudes that shape the behaviour of the people who comprise Consumer India. This is useful because consumption and brands do not live in the narrow confines of a market space but exist as a part of the larger canvas of  people’s lives. Serving a consumer base without understanding what makes it tick does not make for winning businesses, sound market strategies or creating brands that deeply resonate with consumers.

 

This chapter has three sections:
1. Shapers of Consumer India’s consumption behaviour: A few important themes that are common and relevant to all income groups.
2. Structure and drivers of heterogeneity in Consumer India and how to think about consumer segmentation.
3. How India changes and reading change in Consumer India.

 

As everywhere in this book, this chapter will also examine many of the commonly held hypotheses and theories about Consumer India to test their validity and change, nuance or caveat them as the case may require.

 

Section I:

Shapers of Consumer India’s Consumption Behaviour This section identifies and explores a few important themes that are common across all of Consumer India and shape the consumption behaviour of all income groups. A Tectonic Shift from Acceptance to Aspiration, Facilitated by Credit.

 

Aspirational India is a tectonic shift from the pre-liberalization days when we would often hear consumers of lower-income groups tell us in focus groups, ‘This is not for me, this is for the badey log (big people).’ Now, there is a strong statement of, ‘I want to have something like that, be it products or experiences.’ A car is obviously not affordable, but a bike and a taxi for special family outings is. Now, having what celebrities have has become easy with social media. Copies of actress Alia Bhatt’s mehendi pattern and cheap knock-offs of her wedding dress are available. Influencers and beauticians of every social class tell you how to use make-up like celebrities do and style yourself at a price point that you can afford. As ad man Santosh Desai puts it, the big shift is that ‘life is not a condition to be endured but a product to be experienced’. Aspiration-led living is the opposite of the way it used to be. The attitude and mindset shift is from ‘this is what I have and how do I manage best within it’ to ‘this is what I want, so how do I manage to get it’. We see this resulting in choices which can best be described as ‘stretch for more, do not settle for less’. Borrow and buy the higher category car or two-wheeler or buy a second-hand one rather than settle for the easily affordable small car, even if it means waiting a bit, buying a pre-owned vehicle or taking a loan.

 

Credit or borrowing for consumption once considered a very dangerous thing, is now acceptable and ‘normal’ to Consumer India. Amazon and consumer durables stores and travel sites helpfully ask you, at the time of checking out, if you want to pay by EMI, that is, equated monthly instalments of credit. Credit is also morally purified. Its cultural label has changed from indebtedness, which can lead to ruin, to being the working capital for life and the helping hand that everybody needs to reach their goals. Financial services companies have been exploiting this attitude shift leading to the regulators and the courts coming down hard and framing laws to curb irresponsible lending that leads to imprudent borrowing, and strong-arm tactics for recovery that lead to customer stress and even suicides. An example of this is what happened to the microfinance industry in 2010 leading to a new law in 2011 that banned MFIs from approaching the doorstep of their customers, lengthened the loan collection cycles and told lenders that they had to get government approval to give a second loan to the same lender. The Reserve Bank of India, India’s banking regulator has issued a charter of customer rights for banks and non-banking financial services companies (NBFC) that includes the ‘right to suitability’, where ‘only products and services that are appropriate to the understanding and financial conditions of the customers may be offered to them.’ It is a caveat venditor (let the seller beware) as far as enforcing this right is concerned.

***

Get your copy of Lilliput Land by Rama Bijapurkar wherever books are sold.

Under the Bakul Tree : Can Ashim’s Choice Really Save his Family?

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Experience the rustic beauty of Assam with Under the Bakul Tree by acclaimed author Mrinal Kalita, recipient of the Bal Sahitya Puraskar award. Follow Ashim’s journey as he faces tough choices and heavy responsibilities. Translated for the first time from the Assamese, Under the Bakul Tree is a coming-of-age tale that celebrates hope, determination, and the power of true friendship amidst the struggles of poverty and a flawed education system.​

Under the Bakul Tree
Under the Bakul Tree || Mrinal Kalita

***

Ashim lay sleepless on the bed. He was restless. The moonlight crept in through the slats in the reedmat wall and scattered on the opposite side. He could see the starry sky through the slats. Ashim didn’t like it in the slightest. He didn’t like the scattered moonlight floating inside the house and he found no beauty in the star-filled sky that appeared to him through the slats in the wall. The scattered moonlight looked like lumps on the skin of a leper! As the thought crossed his mind, he felt a sudden jolt in his body. He felt as if he was becoming mentally ill.

 

For the last few days, he had been thinking about the same thing over and over again. But he couldn’t arrive at a decision. He turned to look at the face of his Deuta, his father, who was fast asleep beside him on the same cot. He then looked at his mother and sister who were sleeping on the next cot. He could see their pale, rundown faces in the moonlight. An acute pang of pain filled his heart. His feelings towards his mother and sister were always very clear. However, that was not the case with his father. He was never quite at ease around him. And, of course, he didn’t know whether to feel sorry for his father or be angry at him. Whenever he had to face him, a kind of uneasiness weighed Ashim down.

 

Ashim got out of his bed silently. Removing the horizontal bamboo pole which held the door shut, he opened the door and stepped out of the house. Cowbells rang a couple of times in the cowshed. Occasionally, hoots of owls came travelling from somewhere. Dew drops were dripping relentlessly and a thick veil of mist shrouded the area. Shivering in the cold, Ashim got down from the veranda and went to the cowshed to fetch a bundle of firewood which his mother kept there as cooking fuel. Then, taking out the small kerosene lamp from the house, he tried to light a fire. It was only after a few tries that the fire began to burn properly.

 

As the warmth from the burning logs soothed him, Ashim tried to analyse the whole matter with a calm mind. He would need a sizeable amount of money for admission into class X as well as for buying textbooks, notebooks and so on. Moreover, after a few months, he would again need money to fill up the form for the matriculation examination. And even if he was able to pass his board exams, he couldn’t dream of studying in a college. His sister, Ajoli, had been promoted to class VII this year. Up to class VIII, the government provided all the textbooks and exempted school fees for female students, but after two years, money would be needed for her studies too and he needed to think about that. On the other hand, his father’s income by now had dwindled to almost nothing. Occasionally, his father earned a little bit of money by working as a daily wager. But whatever little his father earned, was always used up by himself.

 

Ashim turned his thoughts from his father for the time being as it would only demoralize him further. He thought of his mother. He felt deeply for her. It concerned him that her health was deteriorating day by day. Apart from doing all the household chores, she worked as a house help for two or three families. In return, she received some rice and vegetables. On the top of all this work, she also had to look after the cow.

 

And what do I do? I only study . . . Ashim felt that he was a burden on his mother’s shoulders. As he thought about it all, over and over, staring into the fire, his head became heavy. Then, all of a sudden, not wanting to dwell on his thoughts any further, Ashim made a firm resolve. It was done.

 

He had decided. He would no longer attend school. As it is, his academic performance had deteriorated to a point where he could not even dream of passing the matriculation examination. If he gave up going to school, Ashim decided that he would get enough time to provide some respite to his mother. As he thought about it, he felt a bit lighter. All these days, thinking about the same thing in a relentless loop had drained him both physically and mentally. But now, after taking this decision, he felt much lighter, as if an unbearable burden had been lifted off his head.

***

Get your copy of Under the Bakul Tree by Mrinal Kalita wherever books are sold.

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